Need SSD Buying Advice

[jumpman25]

I'm going to be purchasing a solid state drive for my Macbook Pro and from everything I've read I should go with the Intel X25-m. I'm currently debating between the 80gb version and the 160gb version. I have all my large files on an external HD so the size of the 80gb version wouldn't be a problem, but I've read that you want to leave a lot of free space on an SSD. Is there any truth to this? I usually use around 50gb of hard drive space. I would obviously rather get the 80gb version cause $450 is a lot to spend on a hard drive, but if filling the 80gb version up is going to slow it down, kind of defeats the purpose of getting an SSD in the first place. I also transfer a lot of files between my laptop and my external drives. Does this degrade the performance of the SSD considerably? Any help is appreciated. Thanks

 

[Kingcodez]

If it did slow down you'd hardly notice it. Intel SSDs are pretty much the best right now, my OCZ 64GB is always full, due to my external HDD being dead.

My xbench scores are garbage but I don't notice ANY performance degradation.

If you have a good external, the 80gb will do fine. Intel SSDs have trim and such, so they will run fine for like 10 years.

If you find your self needing the 160, pick it up in a few months used and save a little.

 

[PsyD4Me]

Runcore makes excellent SSD's

 

[hellfire88]

You may want to look into the Kingston SSDNow! V 128GB SSD drive, I believe it uses the same Intel controller as the X25-M, just a lot cheaper and the size is a happy medium between 80GB and 160GB. Best of all it costs just around $250. You may want to just verify with reviews about it using the Intel controller but it supports TRIM and everything. Good luck!

 

[jumpman25]

Thanks for the info. I'm going to check out some reviews on the kingston drives. If they are about the same price and same performance, might as well get more space.